Transcript

Hey, everybody, I hope this video finds you well.

Today I wanted to talk about the importance of workplace alliances.

I’ve always been a pretty outgoing person and made friends relatively easily, and I have found that sometimes it’s really important to have friends or relationships throughout an organization, and the larger the organization, oftentimes the more beneficial those relationships are.

So I have often in my career established relationships, not necessarily on purpose, but established relationships with people across an organization. And when my customers needed help or I needed access to information, or I might have needed a favor or two, oftentimes those relationships really are beneficial, not only for me but also for my customers and for the people that I’m doing work for. But every so often one of those alliances gets hurt or gets bent. And usually it’s not on purpose, but it can really sting and not really feel very good, actually.

And I remember a specific example where the company I was working for was running a promotion and business was really coming in. In fact, it was being a little bit backlogged because of the amount of business that was coming in. So of course, I called on a few friends of mine in both the new business departments and said, “Hey, I’ve got some special needs here. I need some help.”

And because of our friendship or that alliance, oftentimes they gave me a little bit of a push forward or a little bit of a nudge or access to information that maybe I didn’t have to wait for. But during this specific example, business was so backlogged that I had to actually go to this person’s boss and find out what the issue was. Unfortunately, things get lost through translation, and it sure did look like I was ratting out my alliance, which couldn’t be farther from the truth. Repairing that took a long time, but it’s important.

And it was important not only to me to make sure that we had a relationship like it was, but that they could understand the frustration that I was having and that it wasn’t a personal attack on them. Those workplace alliances are important, much like any other relationship you have.

So I’ll challenge you to number one, make as many as you can, and make sure you communicate clearly, especially if there is an issue. Good luck.